Bridgestone Arena hangover fan experience

Article posted by Coliseum, July 2^nd, 2026

Image: Coliseum GSVA

Jacob Lutz is from the United States but is very familiar with the United Kingdom as he studied there for a year. He is the Director of Technical Operations with the National Hockey League (NHL) team Nashville Predators (US).

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A tech person, Lutz stated, “Throughout my entire career I have been focused on the technology side of television production. My position is a very unique spot. Nashville is one of the hottest growing cities in the United States. The Bridgestone Arena, we are a hockey arena first and foremost.”

Jacob Lutz is the Director of Technical Operations for the Nashville Predators and the Bridgestone Arena. He oversees all aspects of broadcast engineering, event technical production planning, audiovisual (AV) systems, NHL club technical operations, and capital technical planning.

In an interaction with ‘Coliseum’, Jacob Lutz, Director, Technical Operations, Nashville Predators, US, tells Rob Hunden President, Hunden Partners, UK, that where the Bridgestone Arena is located in Nashville, Tennessee, “is among the best real estate arguably in the world but it was not that way at a point of time. Even in my lifetime downtown Nashville was not a place where one would want to go, it was a very seedy place, there was a lot of drug use in downtown Nashville, a lot of crime, it was not a good area. Well, the State they did something about that and they turned the city around, turned our economy around and turned it into something incredible. So, the Bridgestone Arena is a very nice venue, very well-maintained venue thanks to our leadership and everybody involved in being a good steward of our venue. We do 365 days of renovation. We work overnight. There is never a moment that we are not doing something. But, we are embarking on a project to redo our venue and it’s a transformation. We also want our fans to feel the hangover once they leave the venue.”

Bridgestone Arena

The 20,000-seat Bridgestone Arena is a multipurpose indoor arena in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1996, it is the home of the National Hockey League (NHL) team Nashville Predators.

The Bridgestone Arena renovation is a $750 million transformation project known as ‘Smashville’s Next Stage: Broadway 2030’. Funded by the Nashville Predators it is the largest upgrade to the 1996-built NHL venue since its opening. The multiyear project focuses on improving fan connectivity, expanding the retail spaces and updating the behind-the-scenes mechanical systems. The construction is taking place in phases during the offseasons of 2026 through 2029 with full completion slated for 2030.

‘Good Stewards’

Informed Jacob Lutz, “The Bridgestone Arena renovation is a privately-funded project and for our ownership to take this on as a privately-funded project is a really big deal. So, with that being said, we want to be good stewards of our project, we want to be good stewards of our city and give back to the city that’s given to us.”

Lutz Role

“My position is to provide that experience, to provide the infrastructure that we need, the design that we need, the capital improvements that we need to do the technical sides of these games but also people come to our games for the fun, the game is almost secondary and that’s where we are different from a lot of the traditional hockey markets. We like to say we are the biggest bar on Broadway, we are the biggest party in the city. It’s very important that our fans have more fun. But the fan experiences are almost primary in our venue and kind of what makes it unique in the NHL.”

Transformation Elements

Rob Hunden mentioned about the elements of the complete transformation of the Bridgestone Arena and Lutz stated that the restyling exercise was still in the early stage – “We are still in the middle of it. Some of the things are the concourses, the retail spaces, the new areas around downtown. One of the key parts of the redevelopment is we have a three-story office tower in our building. Across the street from there is an Apple store. The thing that I am most excited about is we will be the biggest refurb bar on Broadway. We will have 110 concerts a year, a minimum of 42 hockey games a year and a couple of basketball tournaments in between.”

Technical Element

Hunden wanted to know about the tech bells and whistles of the Bridgestone Arena and Lutz informed, “We have spent several million dollars on a pretty significant Wi-Fi upgrade two years ago – Wi-Fi 6E with Extreme. We are putting on a 5G Dash right now. And these things are key to our growth and our future of not only in venue presentation and entertainment but revenue generation for the next 20 years. And talking about our game presentation and particularly there is always that next thing that we are working for. You know something that I am working on right now is going to tie us back to this project is obviously you know we are going to be doing a lot of work as the venue is still open. So, the fan experience when you are entering the venue is going to be different and you know the people are tweakers of habit. So, how do we make the game experience that much more memorable, that much more fun. So, those are the things that we are working on. This summer we are working on major production element enhancement and all things like ice production upgrade, lighting, sound, in Nashville ‘Music City’ sound is a huge thing. So, it is really diving into that and creating a rampant fan base. There is no good way or bad way but it is just the way we are interacting with our fans, it is a lot more intense and is a sort of immersive production. We want you to leave the venue and we want you almost feel like a hangover.”

Wrap-up

Experiential Partner

Jacob Lutz concluded by stating, “Some of our technology partners are converting into sponsors because we are the biggest stage for their products. One of my major sponsors right now is an LED manufacturer and is based in Nashville. In no world does it make sense for an LED manufacturer to have their name on a premium club and in no world does it make sense for a LED manufacturer to be a sponsor of a hockey team. It doesn’t but it does. So, what we are doing is in downtown Nashville we are using our neighborhood, we are finding the sponsorships that we are calling Experience Partners. Everybody wants to come to Nashville. They want to go party, they want to go see the things, they are going to go and find our client, they are going to find who our sponsor is, they are going to take them out to dinner, great time, they are going to bring them to the arena and they are going to see their product everywhere throughout the arena. So, it’s an experiential partner. It doesn’t make sense on paper but it works really well. So, it is experiential sponsorship deals which is fantastic for us.”

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